Tag Archives: Judiciary

Last Monday (30 January), Suriname’s military court – the Krijgsraad – decided to continue with the murder trial against President Bouterse. The President of Suriname faces criminal charges for his involvement in the 1982 ‘December murders’, as part of which fifteen political opponents of his military regime were killed in Fort Zeelandia, Bouterse’s headquarters. The trial against Bouterse, who between 1980 and 1988 ruled Suriname as a military dictator, started already in 2007. However, in the 2010 elections Bouterse and his NDP party claimed a resounding victory at the polls, after which the former dictator was once again installed as Suriname’s president. Since then, there has been a continuous tug of war between the president and the courts. Bouterse’s party first modified the amnesty law in an attempt to adjourn the trial, but the court considered this to be illegitimate interference in an ongoing process. Subsequently, Bouterse instructed the public prosecutor to halt the process in the interest of state security. After first postponing the trial, judge Cynthia Valstein-Montnor this week decided to continue with the trial, thereby not complying with the public prosecutor’s request. The judge summoned the prosecutor to start his address and propose a punishment straightaway, but his request for adjournment until Thursday 9 February was approved.

The relatives of the victims of 1982 are relieved about the court’s decision, and are optimistic about the likelihood that Bouterse will be convicted. However, many people in Suriname fear that the president will not quietly undergo the court’s verdict, and the lawyer of the victims’ families warned that he might now declare a state of emergency in order to sideline the military court. While praising the perseverance of the Krijgsraad and cherishing the court’s decision as a victory for the rule of law in Suriname, the lawyer expressed deep worries about the tensions surrounding the process and the political pressure on the judiciary, which was accused of compromising state security and conspiring with the president’s foreign enemies. Bouterse’s lawyer, on the other hand, argued that nobody in Suriname cares about these murders anymore, since they occurred thirty-five years ago. He claimed that a continuation of the trial would needlessly upset Suriname’s society and undermine the country’s fragile stability, and emphasized that the government’s order to adjourn the trial was fully in line with the Surinamese constitution, and should therefore be respected by the court.

The new developments in the murder trial against Bouterse cannot be regarded in isolation from broader developments in Surinamese society. While the country’s economic prospects appeared to be excellent not more than five years ago, at present Suriname faces a severe economic crisis, and according to the IMF the country’s economy contracted by a staggering 9 per cent in 2016. This economic downturn unquestionably damages Bouterse’s popularity: while the president enjoyed widespread support when he was voted into office in 2010, the deep recession has made him increasingly unpopular, especially because most of the NDP’s lavish campaign promises remain unfulfilled. In turn, while it may be accurate that most younger people do not care much about the 1982 murders, their increasing dissatisfaction with the president now appears to reinforce popular support for the murder trial.

On 5 August 2016, Suriname’s military court decided to once more postpone the murder trial of the country’s ruling president, Dési Bouterse, who is accused of participating in the killings of fifteen political opponents more than thirty years ago. These so-called ‘December murders’ (Dutch: Decembermoorden) occurred on the night of 8 December 1982, at the height of Suriname’s military regime, which was headed by Bouterse. In 2000, one month before the crime became too old to prosecute, a legal investigation was started by the Surinamese judiciary, which in 2007 resulted in a criminal proceeding against Bouterse. The elections of 2010 however produced a resounding victory for the former military ruler, who in that year was inaugurated as Suriname’s next president. In 2012, shortly before the conclusion of the criminal case, the Surinamese Parliament – headed by Bouterse’s National Democratic Party (NDP) – modified the country’s amnesty law, as a result of which the murder trial was adjourned. Suriname’s military court (the krijgsraad) reopened the proceedings in June 2016, considering that the new amnesty law illegitimately intervened in an ongoing trial, after which Bouterse instructed the public prosecutor’s office to halt the prosecution in the interest of state security. In reaction, the judge decided to once more postpone the murder trial until November of this year.

Suriname is a former Dutch colony which became a sovereign state in 1975. In the first five years after the attainment of independence, the country was ruled by a coalition of political parties, reflecting the multi-ethnic composition of the Surinamese population. Taking advantage of growing disenchantment stemming from the dire economic situation, in 1980 Sergeant Bouterse and fifteen other military officials led a successful coup d’état, known as the Sergeants’ Coup. In subsequent years, the country was ruled as a military dictatorship headed by Bouterse, and its ties with The Netherlands were severed. In addition to the ‘December murders’, Bouterse’s troops committed various war crimes as part of the Surinamese Interior War, among which the murder of forty innocent civilians in the village of Moiwana. In the late 1980s, multi-party democracy was reinstated in Suriname, and Bouterse established the NDP with the goal of remaining in power by democratic means. In the Netherlands, Bouterse was sentenced in absentia to eleven years in prison for his involvement in the transport of 474 kilos of cocaine, and Interpol issued an international arrest warrant against the former dictator.

While Bouterse’s NDP remained in the opposition for most of the 1990s and 2000s, the 2010 elections were won decisively by a political coalition (the Megacombinatie) spearheaded by the NDP. The subsequent installment of Bouterse as President led to renewed tensions with The Netherlands and the termination of Dutch development aid to Suriname, but as head of state, Bouterse obtained diplomatic immunity and Interpol’s arrest warrant was dropped. While Bouterse publicly accepted responsibility for the 1982 killings, he has argued that the country must move past its history, and has explained the Dutch actions against him as attempts of the former colonial power to keep controlling Suriname. Whereas Bouterse enjoyed great popular support at the start of his presidency – especially among the youth, who have little recollection of the events of the 1980s – the persistent economic malaise in Suriname has led to a sharp decrease in his popularity. In turn, this might have an effect on the President’s attempts to obstruct his own trial: while supporters of Bouterse continue to call for a complete cessation of the proceedings, the size of this group has been decreasing in recent months.